Tip/Trick Archives - Page 5 of 13

Controlling how flag notes are attached to leaders (part 1)

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Controlling how flag notes are attached to leaders

SolidWorks provides the ability to support many different shapes for flag notes. In addition to shapes, there are several methods in SolidWorks to create flag notes on a drawing. Each method gives a slightly different result in how the flag note symbol looks and how it is attached to the leader line. Part 1 of this article will cover shapes and the flag note symbols.

Flag note symbol shapes

There are two general methods to add flag note symbols to an Annotation Note.

The first (and older) method is to use the symbol library. There are literally hundreds of symbols included within the library. The library supports triangle, square and circle symbols for numbers and letters, with or without the period. This method inserts a tag into the Annotation Note, which then generates the flag note symbol, based on existing data in the gtol.sym file.

Using the Flag note symbols from the symbol library

To use this method, create the Annotation Note with a leader.

While in the edit mode, click on the Add Symbol button in the PropertyManager.

This opens up the Symbol Library. Pick the appropriate flag note symbol and OK.This opens up the Symbol Library. Pick the appropriate flag note symbol and OK.

This will insert the symbol into the Annotation Note.

If the triangle is chosen, the resultant symbol is not an equilateral triangle. The square and circle symbols are truly squares and circles, respectively. Note the gap between the flag note and leader. This gap can get bigger or be completely removed with a different method, which I will go into in part 2 of this article.

Trying to move an annotation arrow but drawing view moves instead?

Have you ever tried to move an arrow of an annotation note, but instead the drawing view itself moved? To fix the mistake, you are forced to undo and retry again. The problem can pop up fairly frequently when trying to move balloons on an assembly drawing. If a balloon is pointing to a vertex of the model, it is very difficult to select the arrow instead of the vertex point. This can be very annoying.

So, how does one gain control over these wily drawing views? SolidWorks allows users to lock the view’s position on the drawing. Locking the view will prevent it from accidentally shifting when trying to move the annotation arrow. To lock a view’s position, RMB click on that view. This will open the Shortcut Menu. Select Lock View Position. This setting will lock the view’s position. Of course, you can undo this by returning to the Shortcut Menu and selecting Unlock View Position.

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Update for SOLIDWORKS 2014: You no longer have to lock view focus or filter selection. In SOLIDWORKS 2014, you can now simply select the balloon first, then select the tip of its arrow. This will allow you to move the arrow (reattach it somewhere else) without any workarounds.

SolidWorks Assembly: Virtual Component Not Found?

Original article written by Nick Beattie, republished with permission of Symmetry Solutions. Image added by Matthew Lorono.

Having problems opening legacy assemblies that had parts saved internally? If you’re getting the “Unable to locate the file…” error referencing a temporary folder, your problem might be in the naming!

In SolidWorks 2009 and prior, you could rename the entire extension of the virtual component saved within the assembly. For example a virtual part named “[vpart1^assembly1]” could be renamed to “[Vpart^Assy]” or simply “[vpart].” It was also possible that while doing a Pack and Go, the assembly would be renamed, but not the virtual component. Starting in 2010, this was changed so that only the “part” portion of the name could be changed. A virtual component named “[vpart1^assembly1]” can only have the “vpart1” portion renamed, while the “^assembly1” will always be the same as the assembly it is stored in.

If the legacy file you’re trying to open in SolidWorks 2010 or newer has had the assembly portion of the component renamed, it will not recognize it as a virtual component and will try to find the file. To get the file to open properly in 2010 and later, you will have to go back and open the part in 2009 and find the virtual part. Any parts shown with brackets such as [vpart] will need to be renamed to have the full current assembly name after the carrot. If you assembly is named “assy123” the virtual component needs to be named “[vpart^assy123].” Save the assembly with the renamed component. Now your assembly should open properly and recognize the virtual component!

Hidden SolidWorks Commands – compiled by Scott Baugh

SolidWorks Help file is notoriously unhelpful at times. It has evolved over the years to improve its usefulness. However, there are still many under-documented functions within the Help file or commands that are completely undocumented. One day in January 2011, Scott Baugh asked a sincere and innocent question in the SolidWorks area on Eng-Tips.

Does anyone no (sic) where I can find a document with hidden SW commands. There are some key strokes and commands in SW that are not always listed in the help, or if they are they are overlooked very easy (sic).

From there, a long thread of comments grew. Someone mentioned that users can print out a list of keystroke assignments. This isn’t what Baugh was looking for.

Then, the list of “hidden SolidWorks commands” began as people submitted commands they felt were obscure or impossible to find in the SolidWorks Help file. It wasn’t long before Baugh offered to compile the list into a document. At first, the idea was to build the list in a discrete document. However, Deepak Gupta suggested GoogleDocs.

From there, Baugh built the list of “hidden SolidWorks commands”. There were three types of items added to the list: commands that are truly undocumented, commands that are under-documented (full functionality isn’t described), and commands that were too hard to find within the documentation.

Baugh then brought the topic over to the SolidWorks Forums, where the discussion further exploded. SolidWorks staff chimed in to address several points, but also to learn. Jim Wilkinson provided several detailed responses to help bring clarity to the conversation. Through his efforts, he also discovered several areas where improvement to the SolidWorks Help file is needed.

The Hidden SolidWorks Commands list is now a treasure of numerous golden nuggets. It’s not long, yet it can take awhile to fully explore. Check it out. If you have any further suggestions, feel free to leave a comment here, or in either the SolidWorks Forum thread or the Eng-Tips thread.

Hidden SolidWorks Commands

What silly drawing workarounds are you using?

Melissa Appel, DS SolidWorks Product Definition Specialist, started an engaging forum thread on the SolidWorks Forum. She invites SolidWorks users to answer the question:

What are the silliest workarounds you use in drawings, and what is the actual goal?

To date, there are 124 responses. Most comments cover one or more particular cases where a silly workaround has to be used in order to acheive desireable results.

There are many topics covered. Several comments are about well covered (and mostly resolved) topics, like the elimination of the Dimension Palette. There’s a few solutions to problems some users experience. Other topics cover little problems, like the fact that a user is forced to double-escape from the Ordinate Dimension command before a new set ordinate dimensions can be started. Then there are big topics, like the fact that SolidWorks doesn’t provide any method to break dimension extension lines around other leaders and extension lines (unless they are actually cross through an arrow).

There’s a lot of good information in the forum thread, but I’m sure there are a great number of topics to cover! Check our the forum thread and add your own or comment on existing topics.

SolidWorks question: why does opening a part cause others to open too?

Have you ever opened a particular SolidWorks file that caused other SolidWorks files to automatically open as well? This can be very frustrating if you want to open a signal part, but then 5 other parts load with it. Most people who encounter this behavior figure out that there are external references that link the files together.

Over the years, I’ve seen people give several types of responses for this behavior in SolidWorks. Some people simply live with the undesired behavior. Others may say, “the file is corrupt,” or “there’s a bug in SolidWorks.” Some people spend hours trying to resolve the cause of the behavior without success (me being one of them, many, many, many years ago).

The answer?

SolidWorks is doing what it is supposed to do when you open one file, and then other external referenced files open automatically with it! This is intended behavior. It is also behavior that you can control at the system level.

There is a setting in System Options that allows you to tell SolidWorks how to handle external referenced files. It’s at Tools pulldown>Options…>System Options tab>External References. At that screen, the fourth line from the top says, “Load referenced documents:” followed by a drop-down field with the following choices:

Prompt – ask the user before opening referenced files
All – open all referenced files every time
None – never open referenced files
Changed Only – only open referenced files if there is a change

As far as I have seen, Changed Only appears to be the SolidWorks default choice for this setting. To tell SolidWorks not to open external referenced files, change this setting to None. Save the setting by clicking OK button.

loadextrefs

That’s it! I know, this seems like such a simple solution for something that may have been particularly frustrating.